If there are enough people interested, maybe we could do a baitfish Streamer tie-along later this Fall.

I've been doing some tying with Selene Dumaine this Summer. Selene lives about 10 miles from where we are in Maine and we've tied up half a dozen or so of the Carrie Stevens patterns together. Here's a link to some of Selene's work.

We could do, say, 6 streamers; maybe 3 Carrie Stevens patterns and 3 Eastern streamers (the main difference is that Carrie glued her wing components together before tying them in; one at a time on the side of the hook, whereas the Eastern streamer wings are tied in all at the same time on the top of the hook).

Let me know if anyone would be interested; we could all learn these patterns together.

Pocono, you got to train under her? Wow. I have been winging it, and asking for critiques. These flies in a 10x take me about 4.5-5 hours to tie, and this is not counting the time I work on the head, after it is tied. Two hours between head cements. That would be a whole lot of time for me to do a swap. I saw a guy tie one in less than fifteen minutes. I don't know how he managed that, it was on a video.

Pocono, you got to train under her? Wow. I have been winging it, and asking for critiques. These flies in a 10x take me about 4.5-5 hours to tie, and this is not counting the time I work on the head, after it is tied. Two hours between head cements. That would be a whole lot of time for me to do a swap. I saw a guy tie one in less than fifteen minutes. I don't know how he managed that, it was on a video.

Kelly,

Yes, we've been tying for the past month and will probably continue for the next few weeks; until we both get too busy again.

Total time for a Carrie Stevens pattern; tied the way that Carrie tied them (but with a vise), is running on the order of about 30 minutes now and I could see that getting shorter as you tie more of these patterns. There's a lot that's common from one pattern to the next. And there are a lot of short-cuts, tricks that help speed up the tying process.

About the only place that I can source 10x hooks is throught Gaelic Supreme; the Mike Martinnek Carrie Stevens streamer hooks. Selene routinely ties her flies on Mustad R79-94720 hooks; #6; much easier to source and a lot cheaper. I think they look great on that size hook.

What I'm suggesting isn't a swap; it's a tie-along; like what we did for the Salmon flies in 2010 and what we did for the Wet/Streamer flies in the Spring of this year; not a swap.

I'll post some pics of the flies that we've tied up. They're student quality one-offs, so very far from presentation flies.

OHHHH...well that sounds good to me Pocono. That way I won't be in a rush. I can do that for sure. Yes, those 10x hooks are not easy to find at all. I wonder if they quit making them? If you have tied with her this long, you must have some mind blowing flies. I'm just puttering along on my own, and asking questions which I'm prone to do, and looking at photos. The only thing is, right now with this feather craze, it is so hard to find some DECENT long feathers for a 10x hook....I hope we can source our materials, and they don't cost us an arm and leg. Gotta go, it is thundering like crazy right now.